Wayne Borcher, COO of SSA, says that while the basics of data modernisation are simple to grasp, the accuracy of updated data is the layer from which the best decisions can be made. “With the speed of communications today, the last thing any company needs is to be caught wanting in the accuracy of their data.”
Borcher adds that erroneous information can be as damaging to a company’s reputation as a data breach. “When taking your data through the modernisation process, it must undergo a meticulous review to ensure compliance with regulations that apply to your own industry and many others.
“This requires not only reviewing your legacy data carefully with a ‘legal eye’, but the ongoing maintenance of all data to ensure compliance with global standards of law, governance, good business practise, privacy and value to your clients.”
Borcher asserts that unlocking potential value and business growth requires your data to be ready to do business now and in the future. “We know certain regulations like the Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPI) and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) have been coming for some time now. For effective and safe digital transformation, data modernisation means not only ensuring current compliance, but future compliance too.”
Data as business currency
With experts like Gartner predicting $2.5-million per minute in IoT spending and 1-million new IoT devices sold every hour by 2021, data is indeed the new business currency. “This leaves no room for outdated data,” Borcher says, urging companies looking to accelerate their potential business and profitability not to wait until the last minute to ensure their data is, indeed, valuable and usable.
“You need not only to ensure clean data, but a team of employees who are able to pick up anything that may make your data questionable – such as non-compliance with laws; understanding that the way data is presented affects analytics; and being able to access and update that data immediately.”
Reputations are made and broken with the click of a mouse in a digital era, so it is worth spending as much time and resources as you can to ensure your data is business-ready. “SSA’s services optimise the value of data, ensuring accurate decision making at all levels,” Borcher says.
SSA assists clients to understand and employ their data in a seamless chain of business imperatives and, importantly, help them in maintaining the value of their asset in their daily business operations, so they can pivot to market demands with speed and accuracy resulting in improved profitability and a business which is future ready.
“In a market where everyone is aware of the value of data,” Borcher adds, “your competitors are likely to be working to be first-to-market with clean, modern data and an intact reputation,” Borcher concludes.